


Unlikely Ally

by Activeimagination



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-29
Updated: 2017-07-29
Packaged: 2018-12-08 14:35:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11648592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Activeimagination/pseuds/Activeimagination
Summary: Future Fic. Aaron and Robert are together raising a toddler Matthew. Aaron is away on business and his best mate arranges a surprise meeting with someone unexpected.





	Unlikely Ally

Unlikely Ally 

According to his husband Aaron wore Mardy well. Very well at times and this was one of them. Over the last few years there had been times when he would have given anything for a night’s sleep that interrupted by a baby’s cry. Now he would give anything, literally anything, to be back in his bedroom with the baby monitor to waken him. 

oOo

‘Hey, I told you to wake me if he was upset’  
‘I heard him so I came, anyway the little man is settling a bit, go get the bottle ready’  
‘I swear little Matthew I think your Daddy hears you but lets Pappy here come to pick you up, never fond of the hard graft your Dad, I’m afraid but he loves you more than anything and so do…’  
Robert had heard enough and was continued down the stairs. Aaron had fretted about the design when the baby had come home but Robert was not about to alter what he considered the design feature of the house. He yawned, they were forgetting what a full night’s sleep was and still he could hardly believe that despite everything they, all of them, were here. 

oOo 

Aaron looked at his watch and knew it was time for the video call.  
‘Hey you’  
‘Hey Mr Dingle’  
‘How is it going? Progress being made?’  
‘Yeah it is ok although why I thought this partnership was a good idea I will never know’  
‘You didn’t, I saw the opportunity, remember and just take a look at the books to see I was right’  
‘Yeah, well anyway tomorrow is the last day of meetings and then I’m back, shouldn’t be another trip for a few months…is the little man up?’  
‘Liv, bring Matthew in please’  
‘Pappy, Pappy, my miss you very much, Daddy does too’  
‘Saps, the lot of you eh Matthew’, Liv smiled at her brother, ‘hey Aaron you get my text about the make up I want’  
‘Yes Liv I did, I’ll get it in the airport but what I’ll look like I don’t know’  
‘Pappy look at me’, Matthew Sugden pounded the table as he almost screamed, he had inherited his father’s patience.  
‘Matthew, Pappy has missed you lots and will have a nice present for you tomorrow night, give Daddy a big hug for me’  
The child was now squirming and Robert would soon lose his cool.  
‘I’ll let you go, give you a call after eleven’  
‘Yeah, tell Adam I said hello’

Aaron waited in the hotel bar. Adam always met him on these trips south and it was the only thing that made them bearable. It was somewhat unusual to do it twice but Adam had insisted. This was just going to be bar food but all the same it was worth it. There was a game on that they might watch as well. His best friend was doing well and was now manager of a very productive farm and ensuring that the scrap was going to one of the partner yards. It had all worked out well. 

‘Mate’, he felt the gentle thump on his shoulder, ‘sorry I’m late but my meeting over ran’  
‘No worries, let’s grab something and then head over there, good view of the big screen and….’  
He stopped cold. It had been a long time since his gut had clinched but it was now. He did a double take, yeah it was her. She had aged a little but was still the picture of elegance. Good God, she was coming towards him.  
‘We need to get out of here Ad, now’  
Adam looked around and quickly turned back.  
‘No, mate you need to stay’  
Aaron looked a little confused, he was trying to discount the idea that Adam had somehow engineered this.  
‘Aaron, it’s nice to see you again’  
Aaron could barely breath.  
‘Come on mate, no need to be rude’  
‘I’m sorry, I thought Adam had told you I was coming’  
‘No, no he had not’, if looks could damage, Adam Barton would have had needed serious medical attention. ‘I need to go’  
‘Aaron, please, I just want to have a few minutes of your time’  
‘Could you give me one reason why I should do anything you would like?’  
The woman looked at him. She could see the conflict in his face, the battle that often waged in him between the better angels and demons. With this man, she knew the angels always had the unfair advantage.  
‘My nephew’

He looked at her again. He looked at Adam and could not figure it out.  
‘I met him by chance at a fair, I still go to some from time to time, look Aaron I begged him to help me meet you, I…I can’t go back there on a whim and I’m not sure Robert would ever meet me’  
‘He wouldn’t’  
‘Please’  
‘Look mate, just hear her out, she lost a lot’  
‘At the hands of…’ he snapped. Adam knew this, he had still been in Emmerdale when it had happened.  
‘Yes Aaron, at the hands of my son but she was my sister and Matthew is her child, the only connection I have with her, with Dad’  
Aaron saw the despair and not for the first time in his life felt sorry for her. Deep down he knew he owed her a hearing, although his husband would go berserk. 

They went to a quiet corner of the hotel bar and sat. He ordered duck and she smiled.  
‘Your husband must be rubbing off on you, he always liked it’  
‘He still does’  
‘How is he?’  
‘Chrissie, I can talk about Matthew, a little but Robert is none of your business.’  
‘Of course’  
‘He is good though, happy, we are both happy and so is Matthew and Liv’  
‘I’m glad, look Aaron, I…I would like to meet him, Matthew that is’

oOo

‘No, no way never’  
‘Ok’  
‘I mean it Aaron, she can’t see him, I mean her son almost ensured he wouldn’t be born and then she, she tried….’  
Robert broke down. In those days after the Home Farm incident Chrissie had briefly tried to get custody of Matthew before Lachlan had instigated the last part of his plan and helped the Crown to prosecute her for perverting the course of justice with Andy.  
‘Look, Rob I understand, I do this is just a request letter. You don’t have to agree, its no place for a six month baby anyway but maybe you should go, she is in a bad way’  
‘I am never having anything to do with her or what is left of her family again. I can’t let them near him, ever.’  
‘Ok, ok, that’s fine.’

oOo

Aaron looked at her while recalling the firmness of Robert when he refused to visit her while she was in prison. That must have been an unbelievable experience. It had all but destroyed him twice and you could say he had it in his DNA but Chrissie was from a different background and yet well her son would not see the light of day for a long time and she had been there too. He knew why Adam had arranged this, he could kill him but he knew why he had done it. 

‘Chrissie, look surely you can see why he would be reluctant, actually why we would be reluctant’  
‘Huh?’  
‘Matthew is like a son to me now, well actually in legal terms he is, I have guardianship rights, essentially I adopted him when we got married, officially.  
Chrissie smiled gently.  
‘Believe it or not I’m glad. He has two parents and a big family so. I’m also glad you two…’  
He looked at her quizzically and realised something.  
‘I never apologised did I?’  
‘Huh?’  
‘For you know the affair, I should have for hurting you. I…I was very blunt in the way I revealed it. I’m not sorry for meeting him or falling for him but the’  
‘Thanks Aaron, it is a long time ago. He loved, I mean loves you. Anybody could see that.  
‘He is a great Dad and all’  
‘I’m sure he is. You know in the beginning he was great with Lachie. Also, you bring out the best in him, in a way I never did. So really I can’t think of two more suited people to bring Matthew up’  
‘Why then? Why do you want to…’  
‘Aaron, he is all I have left. My son killed my father and my sister. He wants nothing to do with me at all now. I have nobody, I would just like to have a connection with him, a little bit of Rebecca in my life, I guess I would like to have him know his mother’s background’  
‘He will’ 

oOo

Matthew’s second birthday, his mother’s second anniversary, had been a lovely day. He had enjoyed it and insisted on blowing out the candles three different times. Daddy and Pappy were not allowed help the third time. Now he slept soundly in his room. The two men who would walk on coals for him were in the living room.  
‘I dread when he asks you know’  
‘Huh’  
‘Matthew, when he asks about his Mum, how do I tell him that I his father made a huge mistake, hurt you, the Pappy he loves, and then he was born early because of a crazed cousin going beserk and his Mum killed, I mean how?’  
Aaron looked at him, he had thought about it too.  
‘We will tell him everything truthfully and in a way that suits whatever age he is. We’ll tell him his Mummy died, that she would have loved him very much, we will bring him to visit the grave. Then when he is older we will explain things properly.’  
‘There will be a lot of explaining’  
‘Yes there will but look Robert we are giving him the things a kid needs most love and stability. By the time he asks those questions he will know that we love him and we love each other. I’m not looking forward to telling him that I was inside either you know.’  
‘You don’t have to’  
‘I will have to and we will probably have to tell him more but he will know then that we are good people, good parents and that while we might not have been perfect in the past we are doing our very best now and that we love him’  
‘You’ve thought about this eh?’  
‘Of course, one of us has to think of things outside the bottom line’, he winked at his husband to make it clear he was teasing ‘and besides I guess it will make it a lot easier when he starts asking about girls or boys’  
‘Good Christ’  
Aaron laughed and grabbed his husband into a hug on the sofa. 

oOo

‘How?’  
‘We have talked about it. When Matthew asks we will tell him about his Mum that she died and that she would have loved him very much. Neither of us would air brush her out Chrissie’  
‘You might have reason to Aaron’  
‘Look I said some harsh things to her for sure and I regret that very much. But I love him to pieces and he deserves to know he would have had a Mum that would have too’  
‘I know you had talked to her’  
‘Yeah’ 

oOo

‘Aaron, hi’  
‘Is Rebecca in Vic?’  
‘Umm yeah but look Aaron I’m not sure’  
‘It’s ok Vic’

They stood in Vic’s living room.  
‘Aaron, I want to say I’m glad that you and Robert are back together I truly am and I never really said this to you but I am sorry for my part in this’  
‘Thanks, look Rebecca I’m never going to be a huge fan but I want to say that there are things I said to you in July that were out of order. I threatened a pregnant woman and I am ashamed of that. I’m in a better place now and I…I am going to make this work with Robert because I love him and he loves me and I would like to be part of your baby’s life with Robert and I am just saying that now. Robert is going to be a great Dad and I want to help him’  
‘Aaron, I’m sure Robert would insist on you being involved and while you might not believe it I like you, always have. I know I will never get a reward for showing it but I do and I can’t think of a better partner for Robert in helping him with the baby than you’  
‘Thanks’  
‘Thank you Aaron and good luck to both of you, despite everything he is a good guy and you make him a better one’. 

oOo

‘Aaron, I understand why Robert wants me nowhere near him. I made a stupid error in the custody thing, utterly stupid. It would never have worked anyway but I did withdraw when I knew what Rebecca had said in her will and guardianship declaration.’  
Aaron nodded.  
‘And… Aaron as I said he is my only connection to them. I’m utterly alone and I am not a terrible person I just need…oh God sorry I promised I wouldn’t cry’  
‘Chrissie, look it’s ok to cry. You need to understand that Robert is stubborn at times. He will do anything to protect who he loves and Matthew is pretty much the top of that list now with Liv and me.’  
‘I would not hurt him or Robert or any of you’  
‘You know what, I probably don’t think you would’

He was being sincere. He had thought a little about her over the years and wondered why she had not visited the graves but now assumed it was because of all this.  
‘You are not a bad person Chrissie, I know that and he does too’  
‘Does he?’  
‘Yes he does. He didn’t go to the police to tell them what Andy had told them about what happened with the stabbing. He said you didn’t deserve that. He still regrets putting you through stuff’  
‘I wondered you know, look I don’t want you to think I want you to strong arm him into anything just ask him?’  
‘I will do that, in fact I will even argue the case a small bit’  
‘You will?’  
‘Yes, I think it might be good all round’  
‘Thanks and…’  
He looked at her wondering what more she could possibly want.  
‘I wonder if you have any photos’  
Aaron lit up, if there was one thing he loved it was showing photos of Matthew and giving the running commentary. He tapped his phone and started.  
‘This is from about six months ago, see he is looking to grab the remote from Rob….’

oOo

‘Have you lost your mind and as for that half cracked silent partner of yours I will literally wring his…’  
The conversation had got even more heated but eventually Robert had agreed.  
‘You know it is a fine time of day when my ex wife and my husband are allied against me’, he had agreed but this was a classic Robert Sugden sulk.  
‘We didn’t get around to comparing notes’  
‘Oi’, he smiled. Yeah, he would sulk a little but he knew that this was the right thing to do. Chrissie was not a bad person really and it would be nice for Matthew to meet her, maybe have a connection with her. 

oOo 

‘Chrissie, it’s Aaron, look Robert and I would like you to meet Matthew so maybe you could come to Emmerdale, we will organise a room in the B and B, we are thinking the last weekend in November’

The call back had come quickly, Robert had spoken to her too.  
‘We are all going to be allies too’  
‘Huh’  
‘Well I mean you, Chrissie, me, Sugden, Dingle, White, quite a formidable team for this lad’  
‘Pappy higher, higher’  
Aaron lifted the toddler higher in the air. Robert looked on, a formidable team of unlikely allies indeed.


End file.
